A Kind of Dream: Stories

Faith, Hope, and Clarity

109 Faith, Hope, and Clar­ity For much of her life Nina ­ Bryant be­ lieved that kind­ ness is the pri­ mary con­ sid­ er­ a­ tion in al­ most every­ thing. That kind­ ness is the First Law. That kind­ ness could save the world from it­ self. “O Love, O Char­ ite!” wrote Geof­frey Chau­ cer. ­ Loving-kindness, ac­ cord­ ing to the Tal­ mud. For Nina, being kind was the first step to­ ward be­ com­ ing, as she put it, human. But she had not al­ ways been kind. She knew that there were in her pock­ ets of de­ spair, envy, fear, and con­ fu­ sion and that these had led her on oc­ ca­ sion to be angry, bit­ ter, and mean, emo­ tions she had named The ­ Uglies, as if they were the three Fates of Greek my­ thol­ ogy. She ­ wanted so much to be kind. And gen­ er­ ous. Alas, be­ hav­ ing ­ kindly to­ ward some­ one—and she ­ didn’t al­ ways—did not mean she was kind. The ­ praxis of kind­ ness was nec­ es­ sary but not suf­fi­ cient. Char­ ity it­ self had lim­ its. One day, Nina, ­ idling at her desk, wrote char­ ity on a ­ Post-It. It star­ tled her with its close­ ness to clar­ ity. What if Paul, in First Co­ rin­ thians, had meant to write faith, hope, and clar­ ity? A slip of the sty­ lus could ­ change every­ thing. Okay, he ­ wasn’t writ­ ing in En­ glish, but still. It was still worth think­ ing about. Nina’s life now, in her later years, was a strug­ gle ­ against pain and a fail­ ing ef­fort to stay sen­ so­ ri­ ally in touch with the world out­ side her­ self. She had cat­ a­ racts. Her hear­ ing grew worse each day; ­ Palmer and Tavy 110 Faith, Hope, and Clarity had to shout at her. She could not de­ tect or iden­ tify odors: gaz­ pa­ cho, fish, an egg—no dif­fer­ ence. Pesto, at least that ­ bought in a jar at the gro­ cery store, ­ smelled like noth­ ing, or, more ac­ cu­ rately, glue. Go­ rilla Glue. Which was now avail­ able in a ­ smaller, ­ monkey-size tube. Per­ haps she ­ wouldn’t have felt so es­ tranged from the world were it not for her ill­ ness; she was only ­ sixty-eight. But be­ cause of her ill­ ness, she lived too much of the day in her mind, blur­ ring the tex­ ture of life with a day­ dream. She could use a lap­ top for an hour or two a day, but it took all her ­ strength and wore her out even ­ though she used it in bed or on the couch down­ stairs. ­ Nina’s ­ thoughts and feel­ ings min­ gled with day­ long ­ dreams and at times it was hard to dis­ tin­ guish them. She had ­ planned to have a Great Late Age—a ­ decade or two in which she would fin­ ish writ­ ing the books she had in mind to write— and she felt ­ cheated, as if some­ one, any­ one, had prom­ ised her more years. Could she blame God? No, she ­ didn’t be­ lieve in Him. Or Her. The real mov­ ers be­ hind the uni­ verse were ­ chance and circum­ stance. Mr. ­ Chance and Mrs.—or ­ should she say Ms?—Circum­ stance, that age­ less ­ couple. Snow had ar­ rived in Mad­ i­ son. Nina knew the lakes would ­ freeze over, the Cap­ i­ tol night ­ lights shin­ ing ­ across Lake Men­ dota like a light­ house. A bea­ con of jus­ tice. But maybe not jus­ tice, she ­ thought. Maybe a bud­ get bent out of shape by log­ rol­ ling leg­ is­ la­ tors. Maybe a de­ bate never to be re­ solved, for that was how Wis­ con­ sin was: at­ trac­ tive but sur­ pris­ ingly cau­ tious. From her bed­ room win­ dow she could see snow fall­ ing on the blue­ spruce. It was start­ ing to cover the side­ walk. The other­ worldly si­ lence of snow set­ tled on the house and ­ street. Nina crept down­ stairs to make a cup of hot choc­ o­ late for Cal­ lie, who would be home any min­ ute. Nina got out ­ Callie’s fa­ vor­ ite mug, which ­ showed a teddy bear play...